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<font face="Verdana"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanchristophe-nothias/sacrificing-the-icann-wil_b_4259217.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanchristophe-nothias/sacrificing-the-icann-wil_b_4259217.html</a><br>
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<h1 class="title-blog">Sacrificing the ICANN Will Not Be Enough for
the US to Restore Its Internet Ethics </h1>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanchristophe-nothias"
rel="author">Jean-Christophe Nothias</a>
<p>We were only a few among media to realize, back in 2012, how
arrogant and powerful was the US over its dominance of the
Internet, and not just its control over the root servers and the
domain name management. Policy making was at stake! Since December
2012, we know it as the US 120-member delegation to the World
Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) left the room
where over 190 nation states were convene to discuss terms of
progress over agreement in international telecommunication
connectivity. Its major reason was: "We do not want to see the
word 'Internet' appearing in an updated telecommunication
intergovernmental treaty. If the US accepts this, freedom of
expression over Internet will be at stake." Everyone remembers how
a large UN bashing campaign was orchestrated hand in hand by US
officials (State Department, Department of Trade, Congress....)
and the US Internet robber barons of our time, under the
leadership of Google and the support of the subsidized heroic
'Internet Freedom Fighters', a naming closer to a talibanesque
approach than of a human rights defender's view.</p>
<p>Today, after Snowden brought evidence to the world, citizens have
learnt their lesson: we are all terrorist, not to forget the
German Chancellor, the Brazilian President, you and me as well.
Who can now trust the US on respecting simple rules over
neutrality, privacy, and honesty? Is this part of the 9/11 legacy
and the Bush administration ethics? Indeed, had all nation states
signed an international telecommunication treaty, the US Democracy
would have either ruined its own diplomatic signature or stopped
its global spying. So far no international treaty is protecting
global citizens from such abuse, maybe a reason to understand why
Edward Snowden decided to spoke truth to power. The citizens of
the United States have had a few or no reaction, hesitating
between a "I have nothing to hide" and a "I don't care if they
look into my data; anyway I like to exhibit myself in social
networks." Maybe they underestimate the price to pay for their
authorities' choice and conduct.</p>
<p>The reality to be considered has an obvious economic origin and
bias, on behalf on which the US is using its 'digital sovereignty'
over foreign players. This 'sovereignty' is expected to help grab
precious points of future growth and tens of thousands of jobs
over the next decades. Already the mighty power of the Internet is
putting the industry big players in a state of permanent stress as
they battle to hide their profits worldwide starting with the UK,
France, Germany, and all relevant markets. The gold Internet
pipeline is bringing indecent power to companies like Google,
Verizon, Apple... showing a poor CSR ranking, thanks to their
ability to avoid paying due tax around the world. Public US
authorities have also their own trade or debt challenges ahead.
All of them whether private or public, bet that Internet will
bring what they need most: profit and tax. If the US has organized
its own market under the patronage of a few monopolies so
precisely described by Susan Crawford in her Captive Audience
book, many of the international telecom competitors are very
unpleased with the same arrogant dominancy outside the US. Add
global spying and abuse of power and you have the perfect Molotov
cocktail for an international uproar.</p>
<p>This is not to mention the gift made to all dictators around the
world now celebrating the last US digital tread, a global affront,
a present that nourishes the villainies the US soldiers are
supposedly fighting at a heavy cost around the world. Democracy is
the 'blond' in dictators' favorite jokes. All of this comes with a
heavy price to all democrats. Any principle that a country pushes
to the no-value zone is a very expensive asset to conquer back.
Indeed, Internet is now part of our common geography and politics,
and a mirror to any ethical failure.<br>
<br>
Even though I am not a fervent Marxist, I would define Internet
governance more as the superstructure where, beyond national
policies, are established internationally, public policy,
connectivity agreements, competition fairness, and digital ethics
(first pack goes first...), by opposition to the base where
corporations and technicians enjoy setting things by force of
common technological and commercial sense. Both of them are not so
concerned about public good. Their game is to enjoy the most
effective code to maximize profits. The fact is that in order to
be left alone 'ruling' the code, and the digital space revenue,
they are keen to explain that Internet is a pure decentralized
world that hates nothing more than to be governed. Jungle and
Far-West are always more fun for the ones with the guns. "How to
govern such a decentralized wildness?" ask the defenders of the
status quo. In this world of 'Digital Freedom Fighters' of all
kind, the 'enemy' is governance and regulation. "Regulation kills
innovation." According to these bright minds - some of them paid
by the Internet robber barons to protect and enlarge their
baronies - Internet could not be governed except by the successful
corporations.<br>
<br>
Today, foreign countries realize that the US needs to be grounded.
The big lie about the ungovernable digital space has come to an
end, as national laws prevail and are about to conflict each
other, as more investment is required for higher speed and
connectivity, as digital inequalities between regions and
continents are stretching - Google's pocket money put into
balloons won't fill the Internet holes in Africa, when the fortune
it is putting in fiber will reinforce Google's power over the US
market, or emerging countries where Google, Facebook and other
grab public digital space for little efforts. As any other common
good, Internet public regulation is needed all over the world.
International law is not the enemy. Vested interests are the enemy
of the Netizens. This is getting clearer to many minds, including
the ones who de facto control the digital world and its industry.<br>
<br>
The White House and the US Internet Barons have now two major
issues: how to calm down their very upset partners and/or
competitors, and how to avoid a major digital spring that would
ruin the current status-quo over their domination within the
Internet governance - supposedly for our own good.<br>
<br>
A first idea came regarding the economic issue and it went quite
un-noticed after the last September G-20 meeting in Saint
Petersburg. Published as the <em>Tax</em> <a
href="http://www.g20.org/news/20130906/782776427.html"
target="_hplink"><em>Annex</em></a> <em>to the Saint Petersburg
G20 Leaders Declaration</em>, this document claims that:</p>
<blockquote>"International tax rules, which date back to the 1920's,
have not kept pace with the changing business environment,
including the growing importance of intangibles and the digital
economy. (...)... Issues to be examined include, but are not
limited to, the ability of a company to have a significant digital
presence in the economy of another country without being liable to
taxation due to the lack of nexus under current international
rules, the attribution of value created from the generation of
marketable location-relevant data through the use of digital
products and services, the characterization of income derived from
new business models, the application of related source rules, and
how to ensure the effective collection of VAT/GST with respect to
the cross-border supply of digital goods and services."</blockquote>
<p>Or to put it simply, when a Turkish or Mexican netizen links to a
Google ad, then the data related to that ad revenue will be taxed
by the national fiscal authorities. Same idea would therefore
applied in all G20 countries, as all of them signed for this to be
implemented, including the US. This is quite a change, and indeed,
France has been pushing hard on this idea, following the report
published in January 2013 by Pierre Colin and Nicolas Collin for
both the <em>Ministère de l'Economie et des Finances</em> and the
<em>Ministère du redressement productif</em> headed by the vocal
Arnaud Montebourg. Weeks ago, French digital economy minister,
Fleur Pellerin argued in an interview given to the FT that:</p>
<blockquote>"The time has come to be more proactive on the European
level, not to regulate the Internet but to regulate some platforms
that have gained dominant positions and now use those dominant
positions to make it impossible for smaller actors to develop and
to challenge their positions. That's a problem."</blockquote>
<p>Ms Pellerin has been pushing the issue on the European agenda
since then, with some success and aims at linking the tax base to
the place where the profits are made, and proposing a revised EU
value added tax by spring 2014. For the White House and the State
department, it sounds like a minor blow, as the project targets
mainly US corporations, and wealthy ones. Some new tax revenues
might soften political wills around the digital planet. Dries
Lesage, professor of globalization and global governance, at Ghent
Institute for International Studies, at Ghent University brings a
clear understanding of what is at stake in a paper published in
the Saint Petersburg G20 preparatory documentation:</p>
<blockquote>"The transnational observation should give way to an
entirely new regime, one that is based on unitary taxation. This
means that multinationals' global profits are allocated and taxed
per country, according to a formula that looks into real economic
activity. The current regime, in contrast, allows multinational
groups to engage in artificial cross-border transactions among
their own subsidiaries, in order to shift profits to low-tax
jurisdictions and tax havens."</blockquote>
<p>Regarding the Internet governance itself, a US idea has emerged
in order to create a double-win situation. "<em>Let's give away
the ICANN to the rest of the world</em>." From DC to London,
Paris, Geneva, Istanbul, Rio, Bali, the idea is getting more
popular according to sources at the IGF and other stakeholders who
declined to be identified at this stage. What's the plan? The
ICANN would become an international body, away from US control.
Officially. Of course, it is hard to imagine that this would
affect the 13 global Internet 'root-servers' run by entities based
in the US (Verisign, USC-ISI, Cogent, Maryland University, Nasa,
Internet Systems Consortium, Defense Information Systems Agency,
United States Army, ICANN), one in the UK (RIPE NCC), one in Japan
(WIDE Project), and one in Sweden (Autonomica). For the plan to
work to 'sacrifice' the ICANN and impose a multi-stakeholder
neoliberal model, the US needs to give the ICANN an international
shine, still not a UN one. There enters an unexpected player: the
Swiss who have been suffering much of the US tax blame, and lost
their banking secrecy under its twist, have now a possibility to
calm the fiscal US storm by giving to a future ICANN a nest, which
would be "neutral" and "international". It would look UN-style
without being UN. It would also reinforce the multi-stakeholder
shine of the criticized ICANN. A clear definition of what means
the later model is still unclear, and this vagueness might be its
most enjoyable advantage. Such an institutional animal would have
much room for improvisation and special arrangements - as ICANN
did for 15 years so far. There is a danger that corporations'
voice would equal if not overpass all governmental voices. Civil
society would also participate but as their funding often comes
from Corporations, they might not be so independent. Of course,
the Brazilians whose president has turned this into a personal
matter would have an easy reward to collect, as they could claim
they have obtained a major change in Internet Governance.
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has announced during her NY
speech at the UN that her country will submit a resolution in
order to change the course of the Internet governance before
December 16, 2013, when the UN General assembly will take a break
for 13 weeks. As the US would certainly appreciate this resolution
never to surface, the president of ICANN, Fadi Chéhade visited
Brazil on October 7. Chéhade met Brazilian Communication minister,
Paulo Bernardo, and they agreed that Brazil would host a meeting
in April 2014 in Rio de Janeiro. </p>
<blockquote>"I understand that the Internet, as a new feature,
requires active participation by governments, their respective
agencies within the United Nations, but also users, civil society,
and technicians, who after all make the Internet work"</blockquote>
Chehadé defended, adding that corporations and academics should also
participate to the debate.
<blockquote>"We must not allow economic, political and religious
interests to interfere in the free circulation of ideas"</blockquote>
Bernardo commented. This is why these days, there is growing
excitement in order to announce that the ICANN might move away from
a Californian non profit to a more international, multi-stakeholder
model, still keeping the governments and ITU at bay in a renewed
Governmental Advisory Committee already existing in the current
ICANN. Last week, during a UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
(on Internet related public issues), an AT&T employee and
representative of an Indian business chamber said:
<blockquote>"Business believes that stakeholders at the future table
need to be on a equal footing to make decisions related to
Internet policy."</blockquote>
According to one participant to the meeting, a lot of the present
working group members from private sector and civil society
supported this view enthusiastically. Ultimately, such a idea would
lead corporations and governments to establish together the future
of Internet policy making.
<p>On December 6, in Bern, a forum will gather a group of Swiss
authorities and US stakeholders such as Internet Society and ICANN
representatives. They will talk about the "Institutionalization of
Global Internet Governance, Multistakeholderism, Multilateralism
and Beyond". Frédéric Riehl, vice-director of the Swiss Federal
Office of Communications will explain the new positioning of
Switzerland in the Internet Governance landscape. The participants
will also assess the multilateral model such as the ones from ITU,
WTO and WIPO, during a debate moderated by Tarek Kamel, senior
advisor to the ICANN President for governmental engagement.
Probably the best person to do so if one considers the objective
of the meeting. Everything seems to go in the right direction for
the new ICANN that might join soon the Internet Society, already
headquartered in Geneva.<br>
<br>
Giving away the ICANN might please a few; the Swiss, the
Brazilians, and the usual faithful digital US allies such as the
Swedish and British, but what's about the Germans, the French and
other Europeans, not to mention the Africans and Asians. As the
single market for Telecom in Europe is at stake these days, the
Europeans might have a serious talk. </p>
<p>By the way, what are the media telling us on this huge battle and
challenge? They might buy the 'internationalization' of the ICANN
as a good step forward (!?). Many among foreign governments might
not go for it. The first Internet political war is going to last
until we get a fair and open debate.</p>
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